


Not Revelation but Recognition

by the_rck



Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny, Dragaera - Steven Brust
Genre: Cosmology, Crossover, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Intrigue, Magical Theory, Parent-Child Relationship, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22058719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/pseuds/the_rck
Summary: When I stood at the edge of the Lesser Sea of Chaos, I knew I'd been wrong about what had kept Despil in Dragaera. Za hadn't found something simply intriguing; za had found a place where the Abyss bubbled up through reality and then... sat there, doing nothing much at all. Since the Abyss constantly erodes the edges of the Courts of Chaos, held back only by active use of the Logrus, having the raw stuff of chaos directly touching ordered matter without a buffer should have meant that the Shadow's lifespan could be measured in minutes.Whatever the buffer was here, it wasn't the Logrus.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8
Collections: Fandom Trumps Hate 2019





	Not Revelation but Recognition

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gammarad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gammarad/gifts).



> Thanks to Ilyena_sylph for beta reading.
> 
> I currently consider this to be in the same universe with "Knowing Where to End." It may or may not be in the same universe as any of my other Amber stories.
> 
> Title from Carl Phillips's "Lost, but for a Few Still-Bright Details."

"I've lost four experienced agents to the place so far," Mandor told me. "No sign of Despil at all." Za hesitated. "But za hasn't shown up anywhere else, either."

I tapped a claw on the map Mandor had unrolled in front of me. "And you didn't tell me. Why?" I let my eyes meet zans in challenge. "I've more right to know."

"You were... busy. Also, Despil has better judgment than your other two. I didn't realize that za'd got in over zans head."

Mandor still hadn't given me evidence that Despil was missing. There were many explanations for a person disappearing into Shadow for a while. The last I'd known, Despil had planned to try the Pattern. Za wanted the freedom that Merlin had.

I'd sent Despil to Benedict. He'd sent Despil to Llewella and Rebma.

If I'd wanted Despil to walk Rebma's Pattern, I'd have talked to Martin. He'd certainly have given me that. He'd have given it to Despil, without my intervention, if za had asked.

Fiona claimed that it made no difference which Pattern a person walked first. She didn't like to admit that the data set was too limited. For Rebma, only Martin and Llewella. For Tir... no one admitted to it.

Despil had accepted Rebma. Za had smiled before za left and said, "I wanted Pattern. I was willing to accept the family connection. This is better."

I'm not sure why my oldest two should be so wanting in ambition. Apparently, I didn't teach them well enough that power is the only shield we have against someone else yanking our strings.

Possibly, Despil just wanted time to find zans own power. Za was the one who saw Mandor most fully which also meant seeing me. Merlin bolted the moment za could. Jurt tried to play every side against the middle.

Despil... Za had the advantage that no one noticed zan. Even I forgot my middle child. Possibly because za was the one I'd wanted least.

Merlin was a tether to Amber, a means to an end I wanted. Jurt was my admission that I actually liked raising children. Despil was my fallback plan. Despil was the one I hadn't valued because everything with Merlin was urgent and potentially lethal.

Of my children, Despil was the most likely to advance via a knife in my back. Or in Mandor's. Za had noticed that za was the spare.

"Why would Despil have gone there to begin with?" I couldn't quite keep exasperation out of my voice.

Mandor's wince probably wouldn't have been obvious to anyone else. "I asked zan to look at Grandmother's papers. They'd sat too long without sorting, and I thought there might be things I needed to look into."

I understood that Mandor hadn't wanted to waste zans own time looking at ticket stubs and wedding invitations in order to find the important bits. "That was a foolish thing to do," I told zan.

Despil had found something za considered worth a field trip. Perhaps this place was more than the trap Mandor seemed to think it. Whatever else any of us might say about Despil, za wasn't impulsive.

"Za took most of the pertinent documents," Mandor admitted. Za shrugged. "It is merely that you have experience in Shadow and some... skills... that aren't available to my agents."

I might survive, za meant. I survive everything. Including having Mandor as my step-child. I gave myself eyebrows entirely so that I could raise them. "I require more details."

Mandor sighed.

****

People in the realm into which my child had vanished looked more or less human, and I didn't encounter any shapeshifters. I could see that they'd been there, once upon a time, because much of the ecosystem showed the effects of long term tampering. Magic can produce chimeras, but those usually aren't stable.

They also don't usually look alike on the outside and only manifest their differences via behavior. The fact that the different chimera lines were interfertile-- Yes. Someone had been meddling.

And it had happened a very long time ago because none of them remembered it. I listened to songs and stories. I spied, and I wandered. I was fairly sure that, whatever was going on with Despil, it wasn't likely to be a thing I could resolve by drawing attention to myself.

Mandor's people probably had attacked things head on. They had probably thought that this was a rescue. I knew-- and Mandor had to suspect-- that Despil had likely found something intriguing and settled zanself in to observe. Despil had never been a risk taker. No, that's not quite right. Za took many calculated risks. Za just wasn't prone to impulsive risks.

I expected Despil to long outlive Jurt. I loved them both, but Jurt-- Eventually, za was going to get in over zans head. Za might survive and learn, but, equally, za might not. I couldn't always be there to rescue zan.

At least Merlin tended to stay in one place. His attempts to get himself killed didn't so much have to do with him not considering risk as they did with him having always known that he was being molded into a weapon. He had been born to be hanged; why should he worry about drowning today?

Of course, Merlin would likely live forever because all the Gods smiled on him. Everything he touched shaped itself to him.

As I declined to be so shaped, I liked Merlin less well than a mother ought.

When I stood at the edge of the Lesser Sea of Chaos, I knew I'd been wrong about what had kept Despil in Dragaera. Za hadn't found something simply intriguing; za had found a place where the Abyss bubbled up through reality and then... sat there, doing nothing much at all. Since the Abyss constantly erodes the edges of the Courts of Chaos, held back only by active use of the Logrus, having the raw stuff of chaos directly touching ordered matter without a buffer should have meant that the Shadow's lifespan could be measured in minutes.

Whatever the buffer was here, it wasn't the Logrus.

*****

Sethra Lavode pointed me toward Castle Black. Her assurance that my child was in good health didn't make me less worried. She reminded me too much of Oberon, ancient and ruthless, and I had nothing to make her value me.

I could probably take her. Probably. But she was almost certain to come after me in an ambush if she really wanted to kill me. I didn't know enough about what she could do to know what I should defend against.

I didn't like my own safety relying on Sethra's need for Despil's help. It upended the way things ought to be.

That doubt about Sethra, however, was the reason I refused her help in traveling to Castle Black. She said she could teleport me, and I knew that was the normal method of travel for people of power in this world. Instead, I changed shape into a giant jhereg, a flying creature of that world that was near my size. I could have become the smaller, venomous version-- I'd taken that form for a lot of my exploration-- but I didn't want Sethra to know that I could alter my mass.

Changing the not-venomous part of the giant jhereg was less obvious than me shrinking would be.

Apparently giant jhereg were rarer than I'd thought. A lot of peasants stopped work to stare up at me as I flew overhead. No one fired a ballista or a spell at me, though, so I suppose it wasn't important.

And the fact that I was so very large meant that I wasn't attempting to sneak into a sorcerer's stronghold. The owner of Castle Black was a Dragon. All of the stories said that they disliked anything that might be taken as treachery.

If Despil wanted to stay in this Shadow, me killing the lord of Castle Black might disrupt zans plans.

Fortunately, the castle had a courtyard where I could land. Given that flight wasn't a usual mode of arrival, I'm not sure why the architect bothered with a space open to the weather. Possibly religious reasons? That's often an explanation for things in Shadow that make no sense to me.

Or maybe they just had a thing for making people stand outside in the rain. I've seen more ridiculous ways of asserting status.

At any rate, I landed without difficulty. I remained in great jhereg form while I waited because I could look more dignified sitting on the flagstones than if I took human form and stood in the same spot and because it was harder for anyone to overlook my presence. Most people take large carnivores seriously.

Besides, the sunlight felt pleasant on my skin while I was a jhereg. I wanted to prolong that sensation. It was certain to be the last uncomplicated moment for quite a while.

After several moments, a determined looking woman with light brown hair crossed the courtyard toward me. At approximately six paces away, she bowed to me and said, "My Lord bids you welcome, Dowager Consort of Sawall, Dowager Queen of Amber."

I didn't like that she knew my rank in Amber. Despil didn't; at least, I'd thought za didn't. It was a sour reminder of what I'd lost. I also didn't like that those titles were all about my marriages to people of higher rank than I.

I had value entirely apart from that.

Letting nothing of that show in my face or my posture, I shifted to human form. I made myself female as had been my lifelong habit and tall as the Dragaerans were tall. I didn't want to be mistaken for an Easterner. I chose a mishmash of features from three different Houses because I didn't want to claim a connection I didn't have.

If the House of Jhereg wanted to complain that I was leading people to think I was a member, well-- The House of Jhereg could kiss my ass. Also, the Jhereg could be bought. If I wanted a title from them, I was quite sure they'd be happy to backdate the purchase as far as I needed.

I did not bow in return. A Lord of Chaos need not bend neck in a place like that. "Please thank your lord for the welcome," I said. "I would be most grateful if you informed my child that I am here."

The woman bowed again. "Lord Morrolan expects your child back before we serve dinner. He invites you to wait in his study and will join you for a drink if you're amenable to company during the interval."

I tilted my head to one side as I considered that. Then I nodded. "Very well."

I very much doubt that the room the woman led me to was actually Lord Morrolan's study. It was too much a public face room, altogether too tidy for anyone who indulged in sorcerous research. Even academic research didn't leave a room that artfully perfect.

Still, the furniture was polished dark wood with cushions embroidered in gold, and the carpet was soft and intricately colorful. Two walls were covered by bookshelves. There were no windows, but the magical light was quite good enough for me to be able to browse the books.

Since I was fairly sure that the books were entirely there for people like me to use as a springboard for jumping to conclusions, I wandered over to the wall on my right and considered the spines. I recognized none of the titles. I didn't even recognize most of the languages. I assumed that they were all native to the Shadow; if Despil had retrieved books from elsewhere for zans hosts, I doubted they'd be in a room like this.

Except that it was quite possible that Sethra Lavode had told the Lord of Castle Black to expect my arrival.

I studied the spines of the books on the other side of the room but still didn't spot any languages I knew. The books still might have been meant to make a point. If they were, it was one wasted on me, and I wasn't particularly bothered by the idea of missing that message. If Despil had been trying to communicate something to me, it would have been via something I couldn't possibly miss.

"Please excuse the wait, my lady," a masculine voice said from behind me.

I turned to look. "My child is adult. You are in no way responsible for making sure I know where za is."

By Amber standards, Morrolan e'Drien wouldn't win any beauty contests, but he did look every inch a Dragonlord. He had a sharp, prominent chin and nose. His face was long, and his dark hair was longer.

I'd have taken the hair as a social indicator that he was too important to expect to have to fight, but he was a Dragonlord. Fighting went with the territory.

The sword he carried felt alive, even from several feet away. I recognized it as kin to weapons people had carried through the Pit of the Logrus. That didn't tell me what powers it had, only that it would deploy them with some level of situational awareness.

Morrolan raised his eyebrows. "Indeed. She-- za?" He sounded as if the pronoun were unfamiliar.

I felt no need to explain.

"She has told us little about her home universe," Morrolan said after several seconds. "Only that things that are hard for us are easy for her and the other way around."

"Yes, I had noticed the differences." Part of me wanted to take out my irritation at Despil on the man in front of me, but he was giving me no sliver of an excuse to.

He poured two glasses of a liquid that I assumed was some sort of alcohol. The color was a deep red that made me think of pomegranates and the threads of myths about them that twined through many Shadows.

I would not be indulging; Oberon had used something that looked like it to bind people to specific Shadows. I hoped that Despil hadn't been a complete fool.

Jurt and Merlin both would have been, but Merlin would have been miraculously unaffected or rescued from the repercussions.

"Do you intend to stay?" he asked as he handed me a glass.

I shrugged. "Your world is a pretty place, but I would prefer not to make my child feel like za needs to leave." And, if I stayed too long, more than a year or three, Mandor would either come looking for me himself or rip the Shadow to shreds as too dangerous to leave be. "I may visit again, later, if I'm welcome."

He sipped the liquid in his glass and utterly failed to assure me that I would be welcome to return.

I wondered if that depended on Despil's opinion or if it meant that Morrolan had things to hide. I swirled the liquid inside the hemisphere of the glass. It glinted with blues and, oddly, yellows. Someone had made sure that none of Mandor's agents reported back, and given the stable seas of chaos, there was a great deal to hide.

Possibly, Despil and I both lived because we reeked of the Pattern.

Possibly, whatever lurked here might be enough to eliminate Mandor. I doubted it, but I could hope. Za was a powerful ally, but he was also far beyond my ability to control. Our interests would part ways eventually.

I would need allies then. Perhaps Despil and zans allies here-- if they were allies-- might be useful to me.

"Have you visited other worlds?" I asked Morrolan.

A moment of stillness before he answered told me that he had not expected the question. "I have not. I know those who have. More than just your daughter." 

He seemed very set on having Despil be female. I wondered if that was a choice Despil had made or an assumption everyone else had made that Despil hadn't cared to correct. I turned my back on Morrolan and considered the available seating.

There were half a dozen chairs, and three of them circled a low, round table with reading podiums upon it that were built sturdily enough to support heavier books than those on the shelves. Two of the podiums had lenses next to them that I thought must be meant to magnify small print.

Those who couldn't shapeshift needed such things.

I sat in one of the chairs that wasn't drawn up to the table. I raised my glass in a salute but still didn't drink. "Travel broadens one's perspectives," I told him. "If one's already powerful, that is. If one isn't, it offers opportunities."

Those of middling power might gain or lose either way.

He nodded as if I'd scored a point. "Even within one world."

I shrugged with the shoulder on the side upon which I held my glass. "I have less experience with that. The way I travel, world to world is easier and faster than travel across a single world." If I'd had a tail, it would have twitched in irritation. Instead of growing one, I let my fingernails lengthen enough that I could tap them on the glass.

He didn't quite laugh as he pulled a chair to face mine. He sat. "How long did it take you to find us?"

"I had to learn the language," I replied.

"And how long did that take?"

I snorted. "Most would accept that languages take months or years."

He leaned back and sipped the liquid in his glass. "You impressed Sethra."

"That was a side effect rather than a goal."

"It may be a dangerous side effect." The sentence sounded more like a test than a question.

"I don't really expect to meet any of you again. If my child is well enough here and simply forgetting that I might worry, I don't care what the rest of you do." I met his eyes. "Your world, your business. My child, my business. Well, and zans business. Za is old enough to manage zans own trouble. Up to a point."

Judging by his expression, he took my meaning, but he didn't respond to the implied threat. "Is za a pronoun for the undead? Your daughter has not asked us to use it."

I frowned. I was nearly certain that he didn't care about the pronouns. "Undead? Za and I will be having words." I had no idea how any Lord of Chaos or child of Amber might end up in that state, and I really hoped that Despil was simply using that to explain zans differences from Dragaeran norms. If they thought za was distinctive and fixed form, they'd miss zan when za wanted to pass unnoticed.

"That isn't normal for a necromancer of your people?"

I'd given something away. "There is no normal for that," I said. "It's not an art commonly pursued. Has za come here to study?"

Morrolan blinked. "Your child has more knowledge of that... area of study than anyone else in our world."

"Your people's expertise must be very limited, then." Better that I understate Despil's abilities than let these people think that za was unusually powerful. Whatever Despil might believe, I had no desire to disrupt zans plans just for the sake of asserting my ability to do so. "I am curious about your world and your magic, but exploring that has not been my priority."

I lied, of course. Determining how to adapt my own magic to that of the Shadow had been my second undertaking. Because I wasn't foolish, the first had been determining a subset of forms that would be well sustained by the local biosphere. Heavy metal poisoning or malnutrition would both have been inconvenient. Certain types of radiation needed to be taken very seriously in certain forms. Despil having taken all of the documentation with zan meant I hadn't been able to plan that part in advance.

Admittedly, my magic adapted to the Shadow might well be very alien to the methods the locals used.

"There are different approaches," Morrolan said. "I have studied several. Is your approach more intuitive or more analytical?"

That was an interesting distinction. "My people would ask if your approach was more ordered or more chaotic. Stable and reliable but inflexible versus thoroughly adaptable but always trying to twist free. Intuition and analysis apply to both."

"Fascinating." He set down his glass in midair. It hovered rather than plummeting to stain the carpet; I understood it as a demonstration of his power.

I was still certain I could take him. 

He steepled his fingers. "That's not an axis along which I'd have thought to divide things. Are your workings personal only or done in groups? Are workings standardized?"

I wasn't going to tell him that none of us would trust another long enough for cooperative magices. That would likely undermine Despil's position, and I currently had no reason to wish to do so. "Creativity and originality are the mark of a superior sorcerer," I said. "The weakness there is that each of us has a signature style, much as a true poet does. Lesser sorcerers-- the competent ones-- write doggerel and can't be distinguished from each other. The moderately incompetent--" I shrugged.

"Distinctive again?" He sounded amused.

I laughed a little. "Very much. The truly incompetent destroy themselves and some portion of the universe around them. Well, if their spells do anything at all. Reality does not take kindly to attempts to twist it beyond a certain point."

"That must make learning very difficult." It was almost a question.

"It makes learning without a knowledgeable teacher difficult," I answered. "Some manage it, of course, but it's not an undertaking I'd recommend."

His eyes narrowed slightly. "Those who try it don't know the risks."

"Usually not." I doubted that he knew hunger or desperation or helplessness. Those were not things Dragonlords normally understood. Those were not things Lords of Chaos usually understood, either, so my knowledge of them was almost entirely theoretical.

Almost. Oberon had been a harsh instructor, and I hadn't had a way to move through Shadow on my own.

"Ah." He looked enlightened, and part of me wanted very badly to take his power and his sword and his money and dump him somewhere in Shadow to see how he'd survive. I think he saw something of that in my face because he said, "I was not raised as a Dragonlord, my lady."

My expression didn't normally give away such things, so I straightened. "Houseless?"

"Easterner." His lips twisted slightly. "During the Interregnum."

I had heard something about that. I just hadn't recalled it until he reminded me. "I haven't learned as much about them as I have about the Dragaerans," I admitted.

Mandor had been very specific about which world Despil had disappeared into, and the Eastern lands were not quite in the same Shadow as Imperial lands. No one living in either realm likely noticed the seam, but there was a ripple of difference that marked the border. That didn't fall anywhere near the political boundary, of course, so it was doubly hidden. It reminded me a lot of the line between Amber and Rebma and both of them and Arden.

There also wasn't any way into the Eastern lands without going through Imperial lands. Shadows didn't commonly have that sort of hard border. It happened, but in my experience, it usually meant that someone had been meddling. The impermeability was old, ancient even. Too old for Despil to be responsible for it.

Waysmasters could make such boundaries, but they had to maintain them. They also had to leech stability from adjacent realms. Actually, if I understood correctly, it was more that they shifted Chaos into adjacent realms.

"Eastern magic," Morrolan said, "is more intuitive understanding of and union with the world. It lends itself potently to shared workings. Most humans doubt that witchcraft exists because it is so different from sorcery."

I had gotten an impression of what sorcery was. "That requires a connection to the Orb?" I wasn't sure what the Orb was beyond a magical source and channel. The little I'd heard had made me certain that I would avoid it. The idea of something-- in my head! --like a constantly active Trump connection was horrifying. It would be an incredible vulnerability.

"That is safer," he said. "The alternatives require specific bloodlines or a willingness to embrace madness."

"Just madness or physical deterioration, too?" Possibly, I'd dismissed sorcery too quickly. Not so much as a thing that I'd do myself but as a clue to the stability of those seas of Chaos.

"The mental is faster," he said. "The physical is... mostly theoretical. People don't survive that long."

I considered that. "Just as well," I told him. "If they did, they'd likely destabilize your world entirely. They'd rip vast holes in your reality and dump all of you into the Abyss."

"The Abyss?"

I hadn't meant to tell him that much about greater reality, so I hesitated. It probably wouldn't matter, and Despil was making me wait. "The thing outside of all survivable reality. The corrosion that not even Chaos can endure." If this made things more difficult for my child, well, za more or less deserved it.

Chaos emerged from the Abyss and held. Order emerged from Chaos and held. The Abyss hadn't-- wouldn't-- manage to undo Chaos any more than Chaos had been able to undo Amber. There was something there if I could put my finger on it. 

I shook my head, dismissing the thought. It might be important, though, so I'd consider it later.

Oh. Maybe something in the Abyss had tried and it had gone about as well as certain people's plans to topple Amber had. That was by no means disturbing.

"For a thing to exist," I said. "There must be something beyond it. Borders, boundaries. Definition physically, magically, mentally, somehow. All of that is anathema to the Abyss. I have not made a study of it. Doing that without extreme care guarantees physical and psychic dissolution. Even with extreme care--" I shrugged. "Everyone slips eventually."

For a moment, his expression was unguardedly fascinated. "I should like to see it." He sounded wistful.

"Possibly--" I began.

A knock on the door interrupted us. "Morrolan," a voice said from the other side. "I hear I have a guest."

"Enter," Morrolan says.

The door swung open, and Despil walked in. Za's form was unfamiliar to me, but I recognized zan as za must recognize me. Za had a light layer of scales on zans visible skin but was humanoid. Zans hands looked like the fingers held retractable claws. Zans eyes were whirlpools of gray.

That last is a relatively easy trick for a shapeshifter to manage but never fails to impress fixed form beings. They always think that it reflects a connection to something wild and powerful.

Despil must have known who was waiting for zan, but za stopped just inside the door and looked at me. "Mother," za said with a slight inclination of zans head.

I rose to my feet. "I am glad to see you in good health. We were becoming concerned."

Despil took several steps toward me and gently took my glass from my hand. "I am grown now, Mother." Za's alto voice had reverbrations that the locals would just be able to hear and didn't expect in human voices. Another trick for impressing people who'd hear it as alien power.

"Nevertheless," I replied. "Certain people wondered if you were planning something dangerous to them."

If my suspicions had even the slightest connection to reality, za probably was.

Despil didn't quite laugh. "They call me the Necromancer here."

"Are names so powerful here?" I hadn't used Despil's name because I'd thought zan might be using a pseudonym. "That you would use a title, I mean." I hadn't given my name because, if Despil were in trouble, someone might have been listening for my name.

Despil smiled. "It reminds people not to expect me to be human. It covers many breaches of etiquette." Za turned to Morrolan. "Thank you for entertaining her until I returned."

"We were discussing magical theory," Morrolan said. He had relaxed a little after Despil greeted me.

"Of course, you were." Despil shook zans head. "I should introduce you to Mother's oldest."

I clicked my tongue. "Za has no sense of self-preservation. I shouldn't wish to encourage zan to be... unwise."

"Mother," Despil said, "have you really looked at what Merlin's been doing since za left home?"

I blinked and wondered why I hadn't. I knew, better than most, what sort of destructive nonsense Merlin could manage just 'to see what happens if.' I glanced at Morrolan.

"I wasn't serious," Despil assured me. "Letting Merlin in would upset Verra's plans. Letting you in was... an oversight."

"I have no intention to disrupt whatever it is that you're doing, darling, but step-sibling knows how to find this place. Za thinks you might be finding... interesting... information. I thought I taught you more about concealing things that za might take as threats."

Morrolan was listening intently but didn't interrupt us. I expect he didn't want to risk cutting off the hints he was getting about the two of us.

Za pinched the bridge of zans nose then sipped the drink za had stolen from me. Za looked a little startled then turned to Morrolan. "You rate my mother highly," za said.

Morrolan shrugged. "I am a Dragonlord." He stood. "And she landed in the courtyard in the form of a great jhereg. I expect that I wouldn't enjoy her response to rudeness, and she has not been differently discourteous than you are."

"A great jhereg, Mother? Really?" Despil gave me a look that combined disapproval and amusement. "They're not generally found away from Deathgate Falls."

"I wasn't trying to be inconspicuous," I replied. "Rather the opposite. I had no wish to insult the Lord of Castle Black by appearing to be attempting to sneak in." I glanced at Morrolan. "Not that I couldn't, but it would have taken considerably longer and not gotten me anything useful."

Morrolan laughed. "Would your mother trust my food enough to share a meal?" he asked Despil.

"It's not that Mother doesn't trust your food," za replied. "It's that za doesn't trust your magic. You very likely have tricks za hasn't encountered before. It's a foolish way to end up enslaved."

I made a reprimanding noise that a human throat shouldn't have been able to manage. "Despil--!" Realizing that I'd let my child's name slip, I followed that with words for fool and betrayer and impudent child in a dozen different languages.

Despil's expression didn't change. "I remember my father's ways," za said.

Za wasn't talking about Gramble, Lord Sawall. I hadn't realized that Despil knew zans paternity.

"I always wondered," Despil said conversationally, "if the old bastard used that on you. I don't regret existing, but I wondered. You took so very many risks, even after your walk."

"It's not relevant to anything now," I said. This was not a conversation I wanted to have in front of witnesses, but I recognized Despil's expression. Za wasn't going to let this go. I sighed. "If he did, he didn't ask anything of me that I wasn't inclined to do anyway."

Despil and Morrolan exchanged a glance. "Morrolan excels at identifying and removing old enchantments," Despil said gently. "Do consider it, please. There may be nothing to find."

I walked close to Despil and cupped a hand against zans cheek. "I love you, child, but I trust you no more than I do anyone else."

"I would be honored to assist," Morrolan said, "but I will force nothing. You are both my guests."

That sounded rather like it meant more than the bare words conveyed, so I glanced at Despil.

"Harm to either of us, even forcing us to leave once he made us welcome, would stain his honor, and he is a Dragonlord." Despil studied my face, and I guessed za was trying to judge whether or not I understood the connection between Dragonlords and honor.

Now that it had been brought to my attention, I did understand, and I wouldn't be rude. "Food sounds like an excellent idea," I said. "I photosynthesized through my wings as I flew, but that energy burned quickly."

Morrolan gave me a very polite bow, one between equals if I judged correctly, and offered me his arm. "We can discuss magical theory," he told me. "I think we'll fascinate each other."

I smiled and allowed myself to be led to a dining room. It had been a long time since I'd shared a private meal with a colleague.

How long had it been since I last saw Martin?

****

After dinner, Morrolan offered me a room, and I accepted. 

Despil showed me the way then lingered to talk. Za set careful privacy spells around us.

"I thought you trusted the Lord of Castle Black," I said in a language I thought no one local would know. I suspected that trust in Morrolan wasn't the issue, but I wanted to tease my child a little.

Za made a face at me that told me that za knew what I was trying to do. "There are many others here," za said in the same language. "I'd prefer not to have Devera show up. Or Verra, for that matter, or any of the other gods."

I waved a dismissive hand and went to investigate the bedding provided for my use. The fabric was a brilliant blue and soft and smooth. I wondered how long it had taken to create and whether it was a matter of patient craft or of extravagant magic.

"I haven't told them--" Despil sounded as if za were vibrating from the need to tell someone. Za lowered zans voice. "I think Oberon came from here. Well, no, not exactly or not necessarily. I'm nearly certain that Dworkin met Oberon's mother here. Oberon certainly spent time here after the Pattern was made. The limited access to the Eastern lands from other Shadows _feels_ like his work."

I opened my mouth to dismiss Despil's theories as irrelevant to any present concerns, but something tightened inside me to make speech impossible for a moment. I took three deep breaths then said, "Knowing his origins won't bring him back." I wanted him back. I wanted him back so very badly.

Despil came and put an arm around me. "Does Mandor know?"

I shook my head. "Gramble wouldn't have told zan." 

Gramble had told me not to tell Mandor. Gramble had also told me that Mandor's power games and manipulation were those of an infant next to Oberon's. Gramble had asked me if I was sure Oberon wouldn't sacrifice me for his true goals.

I had told Gramble that Oberon undoubtedly would but that I considered the risk worth the gain.

"Do you stay because of the echoes of Oberon?" I could understand wanting to, but that was for myself. I had a gap in myself where Oberon had been; Despil ought to have remained more whole.

"Not that," Despil assured me. "Or... Those made me look a third and fourth time. I thought you might like a story about him, one no one in Amber has, one no one in the Courts knows to twist and mock."

I had not expected such a kindness from any of my children.

"It cost me nothing to ask questions," Despil said.

"And yet you stayed." I made the words as dry as I could because I didn't want Despil to realize the power zan had over me in that moment.

"Not for Oberon," za replied. "For what I think his mother persuaded him and his father to do, not for Oberon." Za pulled away and took two steps. "I'm still finding pieces. I don't have anything like the full picture."

I sat on the edge of my bed and told myself that I didn't regret my child's distance.

"This world was a laboratory, or so the gods tell me. I don't think, though, that it was testing--" Za waved a hand to indicate more things than zan could list. 

"You have theories," I said.

Za scrubbed the back of zans head. "Yes, but-- The gods are at war with the experimenters. Sethra and Morrolan and others are part of that. It's been going on longer than Amber has existed. It's about ways to use the power of the Abyss to manipulate matter without destroying it and without needing the Logrus.

"At least, I _think_ it is. Nobody uses those words or even has the context to use them."

"That..." I didn't have words. "Do you need help?"

"Who could I trust?"

I understood more about why za wanted to remove any magical controls that might be on me. "That is a difficulty." Everyone was either too weak to be useful or too powerful to trust. "I still have a task that Dworkin laid upon me. When that's done--"

"Corwin?" Despil laughed. "I had wondered why you bothered." Za must have seen something in my face. "What else could have happened to him? It was you or Merlin. No one else could have done it so discreetly, and Merlin... Well."

And Merlin wasn't discreet. Not about that sort of thing. Not about this sort of thing either. Za trusted Mandor too much.

I drummed my fingers on the bedspread. "I can tell Mandor that the place was unclaimed and has bonded to you. You are... Yes. You are experimenting with shaping the realm, possibly with a mind to become a Waysmaster. You're also doing... things... you'd rather not have your mother looking at too closely, and I let you think that I didn't notice. The fact that they know you here as 'the Necromancer' hints at very nasty types of magic."

Despil twitched. "That's not really what they mean by it."

"Mandor won't know that," I told zan. "You and your allies should check for anything za has on me, too." My skin crawled at the idea of making myself so helpless, but I was almost sure that this wasn't Despil's attempt to betray me. That would come another day because za actually did need allies, real allies, and I had nothing I valued more than my children. I had nothing at all but my children and my prisoner. That might, perhaps, be a thing I should remedy. It was an empty prospect for my future.

"I should enjoy discussing magical theory with your--" I hesitated.

"With my friends, Mother. I think they'd enjoy that, too. Morrolan already thinks you're fascinating. His... prejudices in that respect... are different from those of most Dragaerans." Despil smiled. Za expected to get what za wanted.

Perhaps I would, too, once I settled on a thing to want. A friendship might be a place to start. Morrolan could teach me witchcraft.


End file.
